I have a field where I want to have the type_ahead capability. The value
list is fairly small (20 selections) and whether I do it as a custom list or
from a separate SQL table I get the same behavior.
Everything works fine if on gaining focus the user types correctly. As
they type more the right variables pop up until the right one is highlighted
and selected. However it is a list where the user might not remember the
right beginning of the the characters to choose and so has to start again.
At that point the behaviour is very erractic. Say I start typing ‘sc’ and
then delete those characters and start retyping ‘r..’. At that point either
nothing shows up until I type more letters (even though there is only one
value that begins with ‘r’) or, worse, the value flashes momentarily and
when one types additional letters the entire focus is lost and the cursor is
elsewhere.
The ComboBox behaviour with the field set to uneditable works great but
this is a field where they need to be able to do free text occasionally too.
With the ComboBox set to editable then by typing the letters one does
not scroll through the list as happens when it is set to ‘uneditable’.
I am creating this on a Mac G5 with 2.1. Is this behaviour standard if one
makes a mistake and has to start over?
the combobox behaviour is as it supposed to be.
with an editable combobox you can type youre own entry OR you can choose an entry. The entry field doesn’t have any impact on the list.
I have never seen that behaviour of the typeahead field, i think it is something from the mac. Is this behaviour really consistent with all the typeaheads you try?
Als what happens if you already had a value in it. Then give the field focus. Delete the current value (select all, del) and then start typing again (so it didn’t show anything yet)
I understand that the combobox behavior is as it should be. The type
ahead feature though on a Mac at least I don’t think is correct. It
shouldn’t lose focus, I would imagine, just because someone has made a
mistake and wants to delete the character they entered. I’ll check out
the behavior of the field on a PC around here.
What I was trying to say about the ComboBox is that it is a combination
of how it behaves when the field is not editable but would still allow
editing would be perfect. However I imagine that it might not be
possible. I have MD’s who are peering into a microscope and look up
now and again to enter data. Therefore the less hands-on they can be
on doing that the better.
In writing this though I just realized that once again Servoy is perfect.
I’ll just have a button to turn on the ‘editability’ of the field! Perfect! 90%
of the time they will want the non-editable behaviour. If they really want
to be ‘creative’ and actually type something else in then clicking a button
to change the ‘editability’ is no big deal because that is what they want to
do anyway! You guys are amazing!! The only problem is me thinking
about all the things Servoy can do and how best to utilize them!
Along those lines, it WOULD be nice to have a type-ahead feature work with both editable and non-editable combo-boxes - especially with long lists. As the user begins typing in an editable combo-box, the value list selection field scrolls (not a reduced list as with type-ahead) to the closest matching entry. That way a user could easily see if what he is typing in already exists in the list. If so, he can select from the list, if not, he enters the new value.
Having type-ahead with a combo-box is a nice feature because the way a type-ahead field works now, the user can’t browse the list of existing items in a value list ahead of time. The user has to keep trying different combinations to see if a variant is in the list.
Non-editable combo-boxes take the type ahead only part way - it only works (on a Mac anyway) with the first letter. If a user wants to find “Ground Water” in a list and types “G”, the list jumps to the first entry starting with a “G”. If he tries to refine by typing “GR”, the list jumps to the first “R” entry, instead of going to the first record beginning with “GR” (or staying at the first “G” entry if no entry begins with “GR”).
Non-editable combo-boxes take the type ahead only part way - it only works (on a Mac anyway) with the first letter. If a user wants to find “Ground Water” in a list and types “G”, the list jumps to the first entry starting with a “G”.
You might have already noticed this but it does work by typing ‘G’ again that it goes to the next ‘G’ value, type ‘G’ again and it goes to the third and so on. So if you have say 5-10 ‘G’ values that works almost as well as typing the next letter anyway. If you have >20/30 values that start with the same character it doesn’t work as well of course. The trouble is that it loses that behaviour if the field is editable. However with a ‘mature’ database, hopefully the frequency that one would want a ComboBox field to be ‘editable’ would be few and far between. That’s why in my case having the feature of the user being able to switch from editable to non-editable is almost as good.
In our solution, scrolling ahead doesn’t work at all in an editable combo-box. If we type into an editable combo box, there is no scrolling of the value list whatsoever. This would be a great feature to have.
As far as retyping the first letter over to continue scrolling in non-editable combo-boxes, that isn’t as intuitive as continuing to scroll as the user types ahead - plus this works differently than the type-ahead field, thus we have an inconsistent UI.
I agree that in many cases, editable combo-boxes are not needed, but in some instances, they are very valuable - like when a list is expected to “grow” over time. Your button idea is a decent one, but it’s an extra step for the user. My suggestion would be to have both types of combo-boxes scrollable, in a “type-ahead” way, that way things are consistent for the user in all types of fields where they have an option to choose from a value list.
i don’t think i can fix the popuplist of a combo very easy. Because this is integrated into the lookandfeel of the combo (so it is platform specific)
john. Can you upgrade to the latest apple release of java (i believe 1.4.2 update 2 is out)
Because it seems that there is a focus problem at youre place with typehead. I believe this is fixed in an update but i am not 100% sure.